Разработчик: Winter Night Games
Описание
Inspired by the classic point & click adventure games of yesteryear, Arkhangel: The House of the Seven Stars is a story told through the eyes of a family that has recently moved to an isolated town in the frozen wilderness. Explore, unearth dark mysteries, solve puzzles, engross yourself with deep lore, and interact with a large cast of characters in this rich and layered narrative.
- 3D point & click adventure game created with Unity3D.
- Multiple methods of input that the player can choose from: full point & click navigation (recommended), direct input with camera relative controls, and direct input with player relative controls (tank controls)
- Deep narrative with abundant lore to discover and absorb.
- Gorgeous environments in a moody and atmospheric world.
- Large cast of characters to interact with.
- Cinematic, live orchestral musical score by composer and conductor Chad Seiter (ReCore, Super Lucky's Tale, Star Trek, FRINGE, Lego Jurassic World, The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses).
- Game controllers supported.
- Available on Linux, Mac, and Windows.
WINTER NIGHT GAMES was borne from the collective imagination of two dorky brothers. A lifelong interest in video games, pen & paper role playing games, and horror stories compelled us to start our own company, where we make the kind of games we like to play and telling the stories we like to tell. WNG came out of what started as a collaborative effort to write a horror novella. While iterating and fleshing out the structure of the story, it became apparent this story would lend itself to being told within the medium of an adventure game. A larger framework was then conceived, which could support an overarching story that could be told through various gaming media, both digital and analog.
A SPECIAL NOTE FROM THE DEVELOPER:
While there isn't overt gore or on-screen violence in Arkhangel, there is subject matter and imagery that some might find disturbing. This is a mature game experience.
Поддерживаемые языки: english
Системные требования
Windows
- OS: Windows 10 (Any previous version of Windows might technically run but is currently unsupported)
- Processor: 2.9GHz Intel Core i3-4130T (dual-core, 3MB cache)
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: Graphics card with DX10 (shader model 4.0) capabilities.
- Storage: 5 GB available space
Mac
- OS: macOS Sierra
- Processor: 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Storage: 5 GB available space
Linux
- OS: Ubuntu 16.04+ (or equivalent)
- Processor: 2.9GHz Intel Core i3-4130T (dual-core, 3MB cache)
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: 2.9GHz Intel Core i3-4130T (dual-core, 3MB cache)
- Storage: 5 GB available space
- Additional Notes: If you are an nVidia user and find some games have strange black dots across the screen, then we highly recommend adding the following to your Steam Launch Options for Arkhangel, "-force-glcore42 -force-clamped". That should get you going.
Отзывы пользователей
Creepy, compelling and occasionally awkward to play. A 70/100 effort.
The good
Tells a good, wholesome, Lovecraftian story. The best kind of wholesome story
Dark and oppressive tone maintained throughout
Different branching endings
Some solid puzzles
The QTEs aren't as onerous or as annoying as they can be in other games. In fact, they're too easy
You can save at any time. This makes sampling the various endings out a lot easier
The bad
Awkward camera angles and moving around
Highlighted objects not as bright or as prominent as they could be
Some inappropriate background music. Jaunty Russian folk music while traipsing in a dark dungeon, e.g
very rough on the technical side, but still manages to create a nice atmosphere and a well-kept story, even if not very original
The soundtrack is very good
There is no ambiance because of the lack of voices, music and sounds. Also the camera changing point of vue while you walk is disturbing. The character goes up, then the camera switch and it goes back to where it came from. Finally, i just stopped played the game because i was bored of always restarting the game because my character always get stuck in walls, behind bookshelves, where i cant see anything because we cant changed the camera and i cant go back the the main room because im stuck there. Also the faces of the characters when not in cinematics are ugly. And the mix of Cthulhu lore and christian lore is kinda weird. Feels like the creator knows more about religion than about cthulhu.
BUT if you can get pass trought all theses flaws, the story is not bad. The enigmas are nice and the cinematics are kinda beautiful in a book way, wich is nice considering that you play a librarian. I think it still can be worth playing, but be aware of the bugs and the camera switches.
Arkhangel: The House of the Seven Stars is a wonderfully playable story. If you look at it that way and enjoy horror, the occult, and the darker side of religion, there is quite a bit of enjoyment to be had here. If you go in thinking you're getting a complicated adventure game, then you'll surely be disappointed . I was not exactly sure what I was getting in to here as I like to be surprised by adventure games. I was ready for your typical point-and-click fare with convoluted puzzles and nonsensical plot items, but "Arkhangel.." featured none of that. The game has relatively simple controls and camera angles I found nauseating at times (pretty common for me with my motion sickness isssues), but this is one story I did not want to put down until it was done. The soundtrack to the game is worth the price of admission alone. There were times maybe it could have benefited from some quieter/moodier segments, but this would be one game I could actually see myself buying the soundtrack to. Somewhat Celtic sounding at times with no shortage of evil violins and pianos.
This game will not be for everyone, but if you need a short divergence for a weekend, 'Arkhangel..." will fit the bill nicely. Perfect to play on those cold Winter (or Spring) nights. Hail Lucifer.
Sometimes you may look at your steam games inventory, and realize there is a game that you don't remember how it got there. Arkhangel was such a game for me, I was curious about it. Then I was shocked by the bad quality of the game, graphics suck, no voice anywhere, there are simple songs on loop, controls are bad, drawings are childish. I wanted to give it a chance, but by the time I finished first puzzle music box, I was bored to death. There is nothing in this game, even the music box's supposedly "haunting melody" is not haunting at all. The reviews look mostly positive, but after I finished the music box puzzle I got an achievement from it. And it turns out that only 18.7 percent had this. A vast majority couldn't even stand this game even that long. Keep away from this game, its a real hollow experience, its price maybe cheap but believe me there is a reason that it is this cheap. If you are curious just look at its trailers then move on. And don't be confused trailers are more quality than the game itself. Some of them even had a narration.
Spoiler free dissection.
Pros:
- UI is responsive and intuitive. The mouse selection pop up deserves standalone mention. It is the sole feature comparable to AA design.
- Nice stylized graphics of the environments, which will help it age more gracefully. Naturally the locations the story centers on received the most attention.
- The soundtrack consists of tasteful classical oriented music. With a couple variations thrown into the mix within the second half.
- Character walking is solid. I played with WASD. Just make sure to avoid level boundaries/edges. It is possible to lose track of where you are in keyboard mode.
- It has a rich lore despite the complete absence of voice acting.
- The middle portion is nice. It used the prior build up to encourage intrigue and suspense rather well.
That's it, now for the bad...
Cons:
- The stylization could only help it up to a point. Character models are stiffly animated and look like shaded unity assets of the cheap variety. The base essentials are covered, nothing fancy far as the eye can see.
- The soundtrack's compositions don't truly suit a slow horror adventure. Tasteful or not, it has the "Epic" property for too much of it's runtime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_(genre) Needed more lingering, Ambient-like and calm tunes to allow you to settle in and think. They overstayed their welcome and looped quite a few times too.
- Repetition ensued when a few of them were re-used. Unsure why that is, a professional composer was hired for the job.
- Lack of visual feedback outside static cutscenes. You can walk, run, and perform a pick up motion. Everything else is off-screened. Including QTE sequences. (What?) You need more complex animations in the future in order for the gameplay to feel engaging and satisfying. Fade to black/Fade to white just don't cut it for full-fledged adventures.
- The locations are too big for their own good. This is remedied from Day 3 when fast travel is introduced. Why wasn't that a feature from the start? Familiarizing yourself with the city didn't amount to anything by the end anyway. I felt my time was wasted chatting up everyone on Day 1 during my exploration. Because I was worried about missing out on secrets and additional lore.
- I didn't like the beginning and end portions. That's 2/3 of the game I found bad. If the game was only Days 3-5 with maybe the first half of 6 it would've been a thumbs up from me.
Verdict? Poor. Meh to decent at best, and meh to horrendous at it's worst.
Spoilers if you must know why I didn't like the story. Proceed with caution.
The name already hinted at this, and none of us could've seen it coming. This is a Christian (Old Testament) + Lovecraft fiction hybrid. And a minor Christian power fantasy. It is reduced to this when you reach Day 7/Chapter 7. The imagery also in an attempt to be edgy turns to fanfiction type stuff. There may be multiple endings, but not even those can salvage it. This is the intended ending the developers wanted everyone to witness, since you have to really try hard to fail every interaction and QTE to let the horrors win. Cosmic, but for naught.
So far I have read the equivalent of a 300 page book and I'm only an hour in. I don't mind that there aren't any voice actors. What bothers me is that every place our hero goes, he "finds" a stack of books and instead of going about his business, decides to pick each one up and read from it. I understand there's a theme to the books, but why would you kick off a game with this much reading? Our hero goes into the library where there are about 20 shelves filled with books. I'm not exaggerating when I say that he picks a book from each one of the shelves and reads about 3-5 paragraphs from each book. Then he goes around and reads books on stands too. I love to read but today I decided to play a game instead of reading a book. Unfortunately, the game disagreed with me and made me read a book anyway.
I understand the developers were going for the 90s point and click, Leisure Suit Larry/Monkey Island read all the dialogue/no voice acting shtick. Unfortunately, it was a bit heavy handed with all the books. It's just too much guys! He doesn't need to pick up books everywhere he goes. Most 90s games had you read books, but only where appropriate. This game seems like it's trying to win the Most Lines of Dialogue Contest.
The characters are OK I guess, but for some reason half the people in the town curse at our hero anytime he asks a question. The other half will answer your questions begrudgingly. One character that almost ruins the game is the little daughter. For some reason the developers thought it would be appropriate to have a seven year old child comment on everything you do. I walked into the saloon early in the game and she kept bitching about being there. Let's go dad, we don't belong here! No YOU don't belong here so wait outside! Anytime anyone says anything, this little brat babbles something in response. And for some reason she keeps doing this little stupid dance that is infuriating to watch. Let's go see your mother! And we have to watch her skinny little legs awkwardly gyrating around. But it's not just her. ALL the children in the game do this dance. It's so annoying to watch. We have to wait til they're done before we can click and move forward with the game. To make matters worse, we have to play as this girl periodically. All she does is make trouble for the main character and force us to backtrack constantly because she refuses to listen and thinks she knows better. At one point she barges into a bloody scene her father told her not to go. Instead of marching her bratty ass back home, her father levels with her and tries to seek her help in solving the problem. And this same child who freaked out when her mother had a headache isn't at all bothered by blood spattered walls. Gimme a break! I don't enjoy playing a game from the perspective of a child. They usually refuse to do things and have no idea how to do anything. And this one is incredibly annoying.
On a separate note, the music reminds me a bit of Sherlock Holmes games. It's pretty good. I'm sticking with the game because it should be good based on everything I've seen and read...
Arkhangel was an almost but not quite for me; another shining example of why Steam could desperately use that Commodus sideways thumb for a not bad/not good experience. In this 3rd person adventure that got me piqued because the screenshots sort of gave me an Eternal Darkness/Nocturne sort of mindset, you play as Michael who moves his son and daughter into the town of Haven and it's not long before someone opens an H.P. Lovecraft book and increasingly strange events begin to happen. Sickness starts to spread, malevolence takes the townspeople in its grip and death rears its ugly head on the peaceful villa.
Michael's a kind man, a good guy who doesn't mind fetch-questing his way into the hearts of many as he gets to know the people, brushes up on the local lore and finds himself having to stray from Haven's confines to get to the darkness' very core as it inflicts itself upon even his own family. The set-up is there when it comes to this type of stuff, the soundtrack by veteran Chad Seiter welds nicely to the atmosphere, the story is told decently and there was some fun reaching new areas inside the town all the way to its far-seated caverns and ruins. Unfortunately polish and overall design issues let the game down.
Arkhangel begs for voice acting but I understand the difficulty of being on a budget. There are more notes, books, documents and dialogues than you can shake a face tentacle at and flipping/clicking through them did get me caught up in the slow-burn story arc. Accompanied by a rustic soundtrack, the array of literature and seemingly free-roam exploration of the town definitely yearns for an even better game in the developers' future.
Haven is a nicely crafted locale and honestly the low-res textures and sometimes hazy visual quality suit the setting well. As Michael racks up miles on his on-foot odometer though he will often try to fly and start to hover magically above the ground while running and he does this frequently. Even on a high-powered Alienware rig other characters will feel Michael's inspiration and do their best to catch some air and hang a big 10 as well. Animations stutter quite frequently, your character chugging and lag-a-porting forward the best he can. Big Mike even got caught on a texture or three as well and I either had to jam the buttons to get him or loose or restart the game. Thankfully, it doesn't happen all of the time but jerky lag mars the experience from time to time and animations are rigid and rough throughout, unfortunately butting heads with the gameplay. It is also the gameplay that gets tedious as well.
All of the talking and interactions with NPCs were a certain highlight and the devs did a good job at establishing a beat rhythm to the introduction of more characters. Sadly this beat revolves nearly solely around running items around town. This cycle goes beyond the point of necessity required for the lead-in and after awhile it feels like you'll never get to explore other areas that you've seen in passing. A couple of puzzles will slip in from time to time but they are few and more of them would have helped by a country mile. Things get more interesting when your search leaves the town and Arkhangel's most sinister locations are introduced, so the last 1/4 of the game returns your interest but at this point less patient players may have already rang the tavern bell for last call.
As you start to encounter unfriendly faces, a touch of stealth and staying out of the light comes into play. A welcome n' refreshing touch clawed to pieces by poor execution, delayed controls and jank/lag. None of these parts are of extreme difficulty but you'll be facing down movements/actions where a poor result will require a retry. So these are doable but being able to fall to your death is not and the bad controls, dark areas and horrid lag will gang up to practically nudge you to your bitter end on narrow cavern pathways. I was completely shocked that there would be sections like this in the game which is a good precursor to my next paragraph and perhaps Michael n' friends' most glaring flaw.
It's strange but it feels as if Arkhangel has no middle-portion of its gameplay. You feel as if you are stuck in the introduction/lead-up process all the way through the middle of the game and then the last 1/4 turns up the heat/variation. Now the stakes are suddenly higher, the evil is more directly in your face and the suspense is at a peak pitch. Suddenly, the jump in pulse and pacing is where you hoped it would reach but there isn't a lot of action left to go. A well-crafted adventure seems to maintain an arc that is always ratcheting, always drawing you further in with bits of exposition as well and changes in tone; relieving the tension with direction spikes of suspense that finally select a moment to really throw you in the fire for the finale (Sagebrush is a recent horror/thriller game that I thought did this tactic well)...does this make sense? Arkhangel lacks those key jostles along the way before throwing you into the darkness of its concluding chapters. Along with the other above-mentioned complaints is why this game falls into the middle-ground for me while leaning even more slightly towards the negative.
There is talent behind the Arkhangel team and I can tell. I'll actually keep my eye on them because I think with their second or third game they are going to put together all of the positives and pull the trick. In the meantime, I'd say no to this one and especially no at full-price. Yet if you are jones-ing for an adventure on the darker side of the tracks, it could be worth a look if the only options available are obviously utter crap. Arkhangel is certainly not utter crap, just underwhelming and a bit undercooked.
A small budget indie game with lovecraftian themes. Short (around six hours to finish) it is a point and click adventure that features a nice story and music and not so polished controls or graphics.
I enjoyed the game. Grab it on sale
I tried playing an earlier version, and shelved it within 10 minutes due to the clunky movement interface. Giving it another go after the 1.5 Point & Click update, I found the new interface to be MUCH more user-friendly. Thank you so much for making this change, as it allowed me to experience this wonderfully engaging and creepy game!
The writing was well done, with fully developed characters and expansive lore. You can sense the conviction and motivations of the island's current and previous inhabitants through documents, letters, and philosophical/religious passages.
The incredible orchestral and choral music is, somehow, both soothing and jarring in an eerie way. The visuals are mostly great, with shadows and light used effectively in amplifying the uneasy atmosphere of the remote village setting. There are a couple scenes, (Anya's funeral being the most memorable} that were overly lit, with no shadows whatsoever that seemed visually inconsistent with the rest of the game. Though this may have simply been a design choice, and didn't detract from the story.
My only real issue with the game is that there were two points in Day 6 where I was able to get myself into a seemingly unwinnable state: It's possible to charter the boat to Lilith's mansion before retrieving the key to get in. You can then ride the boat back and get the key, but upon returning to the fish monger, he'll request another pass, which you can't get as the general store is now closed. Also if you come back to the mainland by boat, (instead of the secret tunnel from Lilith's place) and then enter the mines, you won't be able to leave. The lower path is blocked, and the mine entrance is clickable, but using the action icon on it does nothing. Thankfully, I'd saved just before leaving, so was able to quickly play through a restore from there. Reading through the journal and paying more attention to clues, the game does try to steer you in the right direction.
Even with the Day 6 issue I encountered, I thoroughly enjoyed this game and am eager to see what this team does next.
It's a nice game for what it is: a simple indie horror story made with a modest budget on a recycled engine. Other reviews here tell the story. The controls are clunky and will annoy you for the first hour or so. Eventually you get the hang of the foibles and learn the map layout. The first couple of acts are a slow buildup, so if the game doesn't hold your patience that long, you won't be happy with this one.
I picked up this game for the 'Lovecraftian' tag, and while the story is not really canon, it's certainly reminiscent of a few of the classics. The creepy atmosphere affords it the gradual pace, and some of the "cyclopean" architecture looks very impressive. The main characters have enough depth for you to root for them.
There is more text than you'll care to read, and unfortunately the game lacks voice acting. The music is appropriately ambient. And while it's necessary to mention the negatives, I still got sucked in. I'll probably finish in 6-8 total hours, with very little replay value. Still, I'm happy with the overall experience and would recommend it if you're OK with the drawbacks.
A very good game, nice script, Satisfy my thirst for an occult-lovecraft based adventure. It will remind you a little Eternal Darkness..
I believe the developers should consider to move in this direction, they have a good story which continues..
game seems to be intriguing and decent but when you play with keyboard and mouse, controls and camera angles incredibly clunky. this makes the game simply unplayable for me. this game suffering from Syberia 3 curse and this is quite sad. if developer adds to point and click controls and fix camera angles i ll try to play again in the next time. there is also no voiceovers for characters and i don't like this either.
Here's how they describe this game in the store:
"Michael struggles with dreams of dark waters and an unknown ancient evil resting beneath the cold waves. Are these simply dreams or are they a premonition of things to come?"
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you already know the answer to that one.
The things-to-come take their time in arriving, however, and meanwhile you don't have much to do besides run around town and play errand boy. This is by far the weakest part of the game. It's probably a lot of work to create a living town that you can interact with in a convincing way, and I guess they had to cut some corners here. The whole open section at the beginning has an artificial feel, and the immersion really suffers for it. They should have just used a map to let you move directly from location to location and skipped the town altogether.
Don't let the slow start turn you off, though. The silver lining there is that it gives you some time to get to know your family. You interact with them, find out about their interests and personalities. You have dinner together and go to a festival. You learn some sad things about your past in a low-key sort of way. There's one scene, to give you an example, where you just sit in front of the fire with your daughter and read her a story. It's pretty endearing.
A lot of games won't bother to lay a strong foundation like this, which is a big mistake. Allowing the player to experience these little details really gets you invested in the story. Then, when bad things inevitably start to happen, it adds extra tension because you actually care about the characters.
They cut some corners in other places, too, but mostly the right ones. There's no extra fluff like animated cutscenes or voice acting. They went with a cel-shaded look that gives it the feel of a graphic novel. That's a good idea for something like this, when you're not using pixel art or a retro style and don't have a big budget for graphics.
It's used to nice effect. One thing that really stands out is the composition of some of the scenes. The camera swings around too much, but when it settles down they manage to create some pretty striking images.
At one point you head up to a mysterious castle ruin at night and they frame your character from behind, dwarfed by the front gate with the moon hanging overhead. In general you can feel a real contrast between the warmth of your home and the stark winter outside, like your family is a little candle flame struggling to survive, enveloped in cold and darkness.
Probably sounds very "atmospheric," and it is. Technically it's a point-and-click adventure, but the focus is always on the story. The interactive elements are there to serve the narrative, not baffle you with puzzles, and so they never slow you down very much. This isn't the sort of game where you're going to be scratching your head and running to a guide for help.
Now I guess I ought to warn you: if you're a devotee of a religion that grew up somewhere near the Mediterranean, you may have a few problems with this story. Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Gnostic...there's something in here to annoy just about everyone. Everyone except Satanists, maybe.
On the other hand, it's so silly that you can't possibly take it seriously. Sort of a mish-mash of cosmic horror and the Book of Enoch and all that stuff. If it bothers you, just take the plot at face value and ignore all the religious retcons. There's enough of a personal element to the story that it balances out the fantasy-lite D&D manual-type lore for the most part.
If nothing else, it's pretty unique. I mean, It's not every day the devil-worshipping demographic gets a bone thrown their way.
You can find more indie game reviews at oddlittlegames.com or visit my curator page. Thanks, and enjoy!
Picked up this gem in the 2018 winter sale. A nice old school story driven adventure filled with Lovecraftian themes.
The game takes place in and around a small town, with lots of areas to explore; some areas you will keep coming back to, and new areas open up as the story progresses. The horror focuses on building a foreboding atmosphere, tension and sense of dread. Don't expect jump scares. After quite a slow start, the story picked up and kept me intrigued. Quite clichéd at times but I enjoyed it nonetheless. I took around 5 and a half hours to finish, exploring at a leisurely pace.
Puzzles are quite simple (fine by me as I was mainly here for the story anyway) and there are some quick time events though they are very easy (only ever one button). I did end up stuck on a couple of occasions, and ended up wandering aimlessly for a while. 1. Didn't realise the game started with matches in the inventory and was looking for a way to light the candle by the attic. At this point the whole game world was open so I ended up wandering miles out of town to find a solution. Not sure if that's indended behavior?; 2. Got stuck trying to find the switch to open the painting in Lilith's Mansion.
Controls are quite clunky using mouse and keyboard, but I got used to the quirks after playing a bit. Would probably have used a controller instead if I had one to hand.
Graphics do the job, but aren't mindblowing. I thought the cel-shaded effect on the characters detracted from the atmosphere a little, but weren't really an issue. The game runs OK on a 3.5 year old MacBook on lowest settings. (I'm away from my usual gaming rig for the holidays!)
The music is delightful! The soundtrack stays fresh thoughout the entire game while being cohesive as a whole. Audio is quite simple, unfortunately there is no voice acting, but the ambient sounds are pretty good and definitely rounds off the overall feel of the setting.
Some elements of the game felt a little unpolished (a wall of text to explain how to play, instead of a tutorial; the UI for item interaction and text dialogs was a little messy) but didn't bother me too much as the game was enjoyable overall.
This is a very nice horror adventure if you can see past its flaws, and is deserving of more attention IMO. A lot of passion went into building this game and I look forward to seeing what Winter Night Games delivers in the future! :)
I couldn't get past the graphics, the game looks awful (a bunch of Unity asset flips, basically). And I'm not a graphics whore by any definition of the word, in fact I usuall prefer a stylized look over a photorealistic one. But that requires some decent art direction, which Arkhangel obviously lacks.
Also, the little dialogue and in-game text I read felt super simple and basic.
This is a one of the more difficult games for me to write up with an easy recommend / don’t recommend verdict. This is a small budget indie game with some flaws. I’ll break it down and if you’re interested by the end of this, I would say give it a shot.
Controls: Clunky! WASD movements and then mouse clicks on characters or interactive items to bring up an interface triangle for Look, Take & Talk. You can’t interact with anybody/thing until you have moved close enough to see your character’s head turn and the tag on the bottom of the screen. Scene shift awkwardness occurs. When you get to the edge of the screen or turn a corner, there is a spin/pause as the perspective changes that I found awkward.
Note on Controls: The developers have posted they will add controller support as soon as they can. No ETA on when this will happen.
Ambiance: Very nice! The music is beautiful. The main scenes are nice, but what stands out on the graphics is the artwork on the “cut scenes,” which are actually transitions where story unfolds before more game interactivity. Even the darker, horror scenes are quite beautifully done.
Challenge: Not so much. There are some puzzles in the game, but not many and I thought pretty simple to get through. There are some quick time events (QTEs), but they are very easy. They consist of either tapping or holding the space bar when a big sign shows up in the middle of the screen telling you to do so. They should not deter anyone that doesn’t like the idea of QTEs.
The game world is really intricate. I felt it wanted to take you to the world of Lovecraft. Desperately! At first, it bothered me a bit because it felt so overt and I don't believe this game is based on an actual story of his, but I settled in and was able to just flow with it. There is a ton of reading. What you find lets you in on what is really happening in this dark little town. The dialogue is okay but felt stilted at times. In some instances, your character ignores things that should have screamed a red flag conversation. But by this time I actually thought it was funny - especially when I learned who the "good guys" are in this tale!
Once I let go of my frustration with the controls and took this game for what it was, I was entertained by where the developers went with the world they created. There is a definitive end to the game, but it also leaves the possibility of a continuing adventure for the ones that survive. I hope that the developers learn from this experience and improve if they decide to continue the journey.
Arkhangel: House of the Seven Stars is a classic point-and-click style adventure game for adults. This is a story-driven game with amazing atmosphere and a phenomenal score.
It’s not an intensely challenging game. You won’t be stumped by the puzzles or have your reaction time tested. Instead, Arkhangel gives you the chance to dive into a detailed world and a compelling story.
The game starts off slowly. Very slowly. But that deliberate pace makes it truly shocking when the horror begins.
The controls also take some getting used to. I might have preferred a completely point-and-click interface. But once you get the hang of it, it works.
The world of Arkhangel is very developed, with a unique history and mythology. If you like the works of H.P. Lovecraft or the World of Darkness role-playing games, you’ll enjoy the lore spread throughout the game.
I also felt the game was the perfect length, and that story came to a satisfying conclusion.
Arkhangel is a competent enough adventure game, if not a little rough around the edges.
The Bad:
I encoutered a few bugs such as getting stuck in terrain and my character model became invisible once after a cutscene and didn't return until I completely restarted the game.
Not a huge fan of the control scheme. I wish there were straight up mouse controls where I could click on an area or an object and my character would walk themselves there. The walk speed felt a little too fast when inside an enclosed space such as a building, but also a little too slow while walking around the town. I wish I had an option to sprint.
Also, the camera would do a dramatic swing when entering a new area which sometimes felt disorienting and felt like it slowed down travel.
Quicktime events without any associated animations felt a little bizzare. I never really felt a sense of urgency and felt they could have been a little more complex than just "Mash spacebar"
Now it might seem I'm dumping on the game, but I'm still recommending it. I still enjoyed the game, and would like to see a more polished followup.
The Good:
Never encoutered any "moon logic" puzzles.
There was a handy journal to check if I wasn't sure about my next step.
I enjoyed the fact that you didn't just play as a single character, which allowed you to view the world through the eyes of someone else.
The world and backstory were compelling.
Exploring the abandoned mansion was really strong.
Music was great
Arkhangel is a devoted take on the classic point-n-click adventure genre, but lovingly packed with moody mystery and ominous Lovecraftian flavor. There's so much to find in this world, and I'm still discovering more. If you like immersing yourself in an environment, getting to know its inhabitants, and unraveling a rich story, this is a game for you. The writing and soundtrack in particular are superb. I can't wait to see what each new day holds.
I'm just here to jot down my initial impressions of the game, as someone who's new to the point-and-click genre. The controls are a little clunky (at least at first) and it's not very well optimized, but the music is fantastic and the story is engaging, even before I've gotten to the main storyline. Also, if you're a fan of lore, there is a TON so for you to explore at your leisure. It's clear that a lot of thought went into the construction of the story and world. Despite some minor initial frustrations at the controls, I'm enjoying the game and I'm glad I have it.
Tl;dr Don't expect it to be perfect, but the main aspects of what you want in a point-and-click game are very well done.
P.S. Your journal is in your inventory, and it's your best friend!
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Дополнительная информация
| Разработчик | Winter Night Games |
| Платформы | Windows, Mac, Linux |
| Ограничение возраста | Нет |
| Дата релиза | 08.12.2024 |
| Отзывы пользователей | 80% положительных (44) |